Fox News Promoting the "Cycle of Violence" Canard - Sally Zahav

by Sally Zahav





At approximately 7:00 this morning (Nov. 18) there was a horrific terror attack in Jerusalem. This time it was two terrorists who entered a synagogue during the morning prayers,  armed with axes, knives and guns. The scene was gruesome. Police rushed to the site and killed the attackers, but unfortunately not before the terrorists had sown death and destruction inside of the synagogue. Here is the report from Arutz 7. As of this writing, there have been four fatalities and thirteen injured, four of those, seriously.

At one point later in the day I tuned in to Fox News TV. As far as TV news goes, I generally watch Fox because until today, with very few exceptions, I could watch it without my Israeli sensibilities being violated, as they so often are by other news sources. I was  not necessarily expecting to see any coverage of this morning's terror attack. But there was coverage, and I was surprised and dismayed by the biased manner of Fox's reportage.


It was not "fair and balanced", a phrase that Fox likes to use to describe the kind of coverage that they purport to deliver. In fact, the report by Leland Vittert was slanted and seemed to imply that the attack was in response to Jewish "extremists" who have been visiting the Temple Mount.  

Vittert did not attempt to explain why Jews visiting the Temple Mount should provoke such a murderous response. It seems that in Vittert's view, it just stands to reason that if Jews (or anyone at all, for that matter) irritate the sensibilities of Muslims for any reason, why, clearly, there will be blood, and no one should be surprised.

Jews have indeed been increasing our activities on the Temple Mount recently, for two main reasons. One is to highlight the absurdity that Jews are not allowed to pray there. And this, in a democratic country where the principle of freedom of religion is held to be extremely important. 

The other reason, perhaps even more relevant, that Jews have been more active on the Temple Mount recently, is to demonstrate Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount. Yes, Israel is the sole legal sovereign on the Temple Mount, according to international law, but ever since ultra-secular Moshe Dayan handed the administration of the Temple Mount over to the Islamic Waqf at the end of the Six Day War, Israeli sovereignty has been, essentially, titular.          

One thing is clear: there is no reason for Jews to be in this Land if we are not sovereign, in law and in practice, on the Temple Mount, the site of both the First and Second Temples, and the future site of the Third Temple. 

Jews were offered to set up our state in an area in Uganda some seventy years ago. Maybe it would have been calmer there. Maybe not. But it would not have been our homeland. Our homeland is here, in the Land of Israel, and nowhere else. Muslims know this. They know, and have openly stated, that if Israel withdraws from the Temple Mount, Israel is finished. They are right. The Temple Mount is the heart of the Jewish homeland. Nothing can live without its heart. For more on this issue, see MK Feiglin's thoughts about the Temple Mount.

After Vittert's piece, the Fox News program known as Fox and Friends resumed, where Brian Kilmeade continued the offensive, saying that each side just keeps ratcheting up the violence.  Yeah. Jews keep praying, Muslims keep murdering. That's about as fair and balanced a situation as the TV coverage of this morning's massacre.

To be fair, later on when I checked the Fox News web site, I saw with some relief that the on-line version of events was  indeed more balanced than the TV coverage. But the damage has been done. Especially in today's climate of obvious and rampant antisemitism, it behooves news outlets to report events truthfully and without fanning the flames of hatred on either side.


Sally Zahav

Source: Middle East and Terrorism original post

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